


Of Unremembered Skies and Snows

by Hemingways_Cats



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Crying, Dating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt Alexander Hamilton, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, a lot of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-21 08:45:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16573370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hemingways_Cats/pseuds/Hemingways_Cats
Summary: They have come to rely on one another, in a way. Perhaps it is unhealthy, and perhaps John’s inability to recall a time when Alexander Hamilton was not at the forefront of his mind should be more of a concern, but he does not care.(He cares too much.)They live through the hurricane that is life together because they dare not brave it alone.5 times John Laurens gets a call about Alexander Hamilton, and one time Alex gets a call about John.





	1. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I decided to do a 5+1 things. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Title is from Dylan Thomas’ poem ‘Clown in the Moon’
> 
> Also, TRIGGER WARNING for blood, (offscreen) violence and a mention of suicide

_It is nighttime. Time passes. Alexander prays._

_He sits hunched over and whispers a broken psalm to a deaf god over and over until the words are fractured like glass and his throat is raw from the shards. He tries to remember but sees nothing, fleeting images evading him as though water through the gaps between his fingers._

_He wonders if he will drown in it. If all the water will flow past him and fill up the room and his lungs and he will be left there, submerged, all blue lips and blue fingertips and blue toes surrounded by blue, blue water._

_He wonders if he would be scared._

_He supposes it wouldn’t make much of a difference._

_It wasn’t supposed to be like this._

_They could have been so much more._

_—————_

They meet on a bright August afternoon when they see each other from opposite sides of a college dorm. 

“So, I guess you’re my roommate”, John says, somehow not as afraid as he thought he’d be in the face of this stranger.

Alex smirks. “I guess I am.”

Time passes and they go from being strangers to friends. John finds his people and his place and he feels more at home than he ever has before, and everything is okay. 

Everything is okay before he is woken up, hot and sluggish and bleary-eyed at three in the morning because his phone is vibrating and he doesn’t remember setting an alarm. 

He sees Jefferson’s name on the screen and although he doesn’t recall ever getting his number John knows that if he is calling, something must be urgent. He swallows and answers.

”Jefferson?”

”Oh, Laurens, thank God.” Jefferson is out of breath and sounds more scared than John thought he ever could. John feels sick. “Laf called me from this bar saying that they went out with Hamilton-“ And John feels something resembling jealousy curl in his stomach at this. “A couple hours ago and that Hamilton- I don’t know, just left for a bit and Laf couldn’t find him so they wanted me to call you to check that he wasn’t in his dorm.” Jefferson breathes heavily.

It takes a moment before John understands the implications of Jefferson’s words and they twist around his throat like a snake. “He’s not here.”

Jefferson swears on the other end of the line and John doesn’t understand why he would care.

”Laf and I are looking for him, Hercules is here too.” Perhaps that is supposed to be comforting. “He’s here somewhere. I’m searching back alleys, Laf’s going back to the bar, I think Hercules is with them.” John supposes Jefferson is trying to comfort himself, narrating his actions so they don’t seem so out of the ordinary. As though they were all in a play and hidden by stage curtains, trapped within the confines of a theatre. 

“Laf says he probably got in a fight.” John thinks Laf is right. He’s only known Alex for a few weeks, but he seems like the type. A little too reckless and a little too bitter to keep the peace.

”It’ll be fine. I’m just gonna-“ Jefferson takes a breath halted by fear and John finds himself doing the same.

”Jesus. Oh-  _Jesus_.” John hears heavy footsteps and heavy breathing. Distantly, he registers that Jefferson must be scared, too.

The words from the phone are muffled now, because Jefferson must have stopped holding it to his face. John catches snatches of stunted monologue, fear dripping from the words.

He can hear Jefferson again. “He’s here. I found Hamilton but I-  _Jesus-_ I need to call Laf _.”_

There is a pregnant pause. “He’s-” Jefferson begins, “It doesn’t look good, but we’ll take him to- to hospital, and-“

John isn’t sure if the pauses are because Jefferson is scared or he is checking on Alex or if the signal is bad or if he simply doesn’t know how to break this news. “No.”

”What? What are you trying to say, that he doesn’t need-“

”Alex doesn’t like hospitals.”

Jefferson sucks in another breath, this one far more afraid and far more exasperated and far more serious. “Look, Laurens, I get that this is scary and- but- this is serious. He’s not- he’s not moving and I don’t know-“

John realises he is shaking and he realises that he has never heard Jefferson admit that he doesn’t know before now and that Jefferson thinks Alex is dead. 

He laughs. 

“Jesus Christ, Laurens, what the-“

”Have you even checked his breathing, Jefferson?”

After a few seconds, he hears Jefferson sigh in what he assumes is relief.

”Christ, okay. Okay. What do I do now?”

“He’s just unconscious. Any obvious head injuries?” John strings together what little medical knowledge he has. He hopes it will be enough.

”It’s dark, it’s hard to see but I think there’s some blood. On the side of his face.” Jefferson sounds remarkably unfazed by that. John guesses that blood on the side of the face is less scary than being dead.

”Okay.” It’s not okay because head injuries are not okay but now is not the time for logic. 

“Okay?”

”Wait there. Call Laf. Take him back here.” John says it like it is the simplest thing in the world.

He must sound flippant.

“Are you sure?”

Is he? “Yes.”

“Okay. Alright.” Jefferson hangs up.

John breathes, places his phone back on the table with a shaking hand, and lies back down.

— 

It is an hour later when Laf, Herc and Alex arrive at the door.

(Jefferson is not there and John supposes he has returned to his own dorm and although he does not care for the other man he cannot help but feel that this action is a betrayal)

Herc and Laf are supporting Alex, who had evidently come round sometime between Jefferson hanging up and now. He is limping and his right eye is swollen shut and he looks in pain, but John sighs in relief at the sight of him. He is here.

John and Alex’s eyes meet, Alex’s pained and jagged and searching and John’s  _tired,_ andAlex nods and is escorted to his bed. John waits.

Laf and Herc leave almost straight away, too drained by the night’s events for empty platitudes.

John goes back to bed. He sleeps and dreams of light and the night sky and towering skyscrapers and blood drying on blue-tinted cold cheeks.

—

When morning comes charging in they find themselves again locking eyes from across the room. For once, Alex is the first to look away, turning from John and sighing, knowing what is to come. 

“Alex.” John almost breathes the name.

Alex remains faced away from him.

”Alex, please.” This is not something John is used to. He does not know how to navigate the waters of this person whom he barely knows. He is lost at sea and this is not a storm he can weather. “Talk to me.” Is that what he is supposed to say?

Alex scoffs before looking down, at a loss for words.

”You scared me.”

Alex looks up at that.

”Jefferson called me at 3am. Said he couldn’t find you. Said you were missing.”

”Since when did Jefferson give a shit about me.”

”He thought you were dead.”

Alex’s eyes widen just a fraction at that, the difference almost imperceptible before the defenses are up again, the drawbridge pulled back and cannons at the ready. “Well he was wrong.”

John actually laughs at that. He is tired and exasperated. “Yeah, I got that. I know.”

”So what’s the problem?”

The words _deliberately obtuse_ flit across John’s mind. He stifles the urge to storm out of the room, or shout, or throw something. “The problem,” he begins carefully, “Is that I got a call at 3am from someone who thought that you were _dead_. Who found you hurt in a dark alleyway. Because you got in some bar fight over _nothing_ and it got so out of hand that it took two people to practically _carry_ you back here.” And although the words are not shouted John is out of breath after saying them, as though they are a whispered and weighted and all too sinful confession.

Alex stares at him for a moment.

”I was scared.” 

Alex shrugs. ”Well you shouldn’t have been. I’m fine.”

John lets out a breath slowly. “One day”, he starts, finding his footing and his words, “I’m scared I will find you dead somewhere. Or Jefferson will. Or I’ll get a call from some hospital saying that someone’s killed you, or you’ve killed yourself.”

John doesn’t miss Alex’s flinch.

”It’s not fair, Alex.”

”I know.”

John wants to ask Alex to not do it again, but he knows that any promises made will be hollow and empty and that this will only make it all the more painful when it all comes crashing down.

” _Stay here_ ”, he wants to say. “ _Stay here with me. Please don’t leave me. I need you._ ”

He doesn’t say it.

”It’s not fair.”

Alex doesn’t reply.

It’s not fair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed that,, I initially intended for this to be a lot less dark (or to at least have a lighter tone) but,,, I’m apparently incapable of writing anything besides angst. Sorry.
> 
> Also PLEASE talk to me in the comments. Anything you have to say is welcome, please tell me what you thought (whether it was too pretentious or whatever lmao) and thank you so much for reading!


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I’m back! Thanks for the comments and kudos!
> 
> Also, in other news, my amazing best friend @Swimi has written a lil thing- it’s super angsty and emotive and just a really great piece of writing (11/10 would recommend) so check it out if ya want :)

It is a cold January day and they have both returned to college after the holidays. John had gone back home to South Carolina, had spent Christmas hiding in plain sight and speaking only when spoken to. 

He doesn’t know where Alexander stayed. He thinks that he might have stayed at college. He doesn’t know where else his friend would have gone.

It is beginning to snow when John approaches the building. It is the coldest John has ever been but he doesn’t mind because the clouds lend the city a blue light and the snow settles in his hair and on his gloves and on the pavements and he is at home in this beautiful place.

When he enters the dorm and sees Alex staring back at him it is as though they are meeting anew, except Alex is him, already there and present, and he is Alex, unsteady and unpredictable. He absently notes that the figure on the bed is his friend but is somehow more than he was before. John remembers seeing a Christmas light display before, once- seeing the lights turn from glassy grey branches to bright, kaleidoscopic spectacles, the colours imprinting themselves on his retinas. He is reminded of this when he looks at Alexander who, somehow, has become illuminated.

John smiles.

Alex smiles back.

The moment is softer and more intimate than any they have shared before and although John is scared by this, he feels it is a good thing. That it is progress. They have known each other for almost five months, have been roommates for almost five months, and their exchanges have been icy and their words curt and cold.

Because Alexander is both more and less than John thought any person could be. He is larger than life, reckless and headstrong and dynamic and constantly shifting and metamorphosing, yet underneath it all he has always been afraid.

Perhaps now he has metamorphosed into something better. Something safer. Perhaps now when John goes near him he will not feel as though he is being both burned and frozen alive at every single nerve ending. Perhaps now Alexander will be the Christmas lights instead of the candle: beautiful and brilliant but with none of the fear or the danger or the flickering out in the wild. Perhaps now they can be something more. 

(But Christmas lights cannot keep John warm and althought they are safe they are not what he needs)

—

It is five months today since they first met.

Alexander is at work and John is in their dorm room. The curtains are shut and blue light peeks  through in slivers and snow wets a patch near the bottom of the fabric as it blows in through a crack in the window and the heating has cut out so John wakes up shivering. Slowly, stiffly, methodically, he gets up and tapes over the crack, opens the curtains and showers and gets dressed and goes to sit at his desk, the cold clouding his mind as he stares unblinking at the worksheets he has laid out. 

When he pictured college, he did not picture this. He pictured warmth and rain and orange-tinted evenings and the steaming bustle of city streets. He did not anticipate being frozen from the outside and burned from the inside and the blueness of the city and the sluggishly stunted speed of the crowds.

He would be lying if he said it were not intoxicating.

He seeks refuge in bed for a while before he decides to get outside where the light is not filtered through the window and he can feel the very heart of the city quivering rather than only the numb aftershocks. 

It is five months today since they first met and John feels more alive than before, feels the cold sealing the cracks in his lungs and feels himself healing with every burning breath. He thinks of Alexander and smiles, lifts his face to the sky with snow in his eyes and raises his arms and thinks that he is flying. John thinks of Alexander’s burning eyes and his warm smiles and his sunny laughs that makes him seem like the most carefree person in the world and he spins, eyes full of blue and white.

It is as he spins in the air, each snowflake forked lightning on his skin as they settle on his face like stars, that he realises he has never cared for anyone or anything as much as he does for Alexander.

—

 He returns to the dorm, to the worksheets strewn across his desk, and sits down. He is halfway through a biochemistry lab report when he hears the trills of his ringtone and his phone lights up and he sees Alexander’s name branded on the screen. 

He is not sure whether his hands are shaking from the oppressive cold or from his nerves (Alex never calls) but he picks up the phone and he is there.

”Hey.” He starts.

”Hey.” Alexander sounds out of breath, as though he has been running, and John pictures him deftly weaving through conglomerating crowds in the icy streets, hunched in his coat with puffs of breath leaking from his mouth and condensing and curling in the cold blue air. John can see the blush to his cheeks and the green gloves he wears and suddenly he is there with him.

”Why’d you call?”

Alexander pauses, the silence pregnant and threatening to Demeter into choking glory. “I’ve been thinking.”

”About what?”

Another pause. More breaths. “About a lot of things.”

This is how conversations with Alexander always go. He evades and darts away from the question, filling up the space between with half-answers and deflections that mean nothing but seem to comfort him. John usually lets him evade, lets him find some semblance of safety in their exchanges. 

“What kind of things?” Part of him feels guilty for pressing, but he is curious.

The silence becomes more engulfing, what once was a river flowing into the immense, roaring ocean. John can almost hear Alex steeling himself.

“About the fact that it’s fucking freezing and I can’t feel my hands. About the fact that both Burr and Jefferson will be at that party we’re going to next week. About the fact that I’m going to be late to my next class.”

John does not know where the river of words is flowing.

”About you.”

There are halted breaths on both sides of the line and there is a beauty to that symmetry which they so rarely reach. 

“What about me?” John is willing to test the waters. He is fearless and he will not back down.

He is fearless.

”About the fact that I like you.” Alexander sounds stronger now, more determined. It is welcome after the unsettling hesitation and John admires it. ”A lot.”

John does not know how to reply and this is all he’s ever dreamt about but he is paralysed.

”John Laurens,” Alexander begins, and John awaits the words with bated breath, “Will you go out with me?”

And John has spent so many months falling hard and fast that the landing must be painful but he is numb to it all.

Alexander is dangerous. Alexander is volatile and unpredictable and ever-changing and John has been burned by him too many times to count. With his burning eyes and warm smile and sunny laugh come searing words and flickering glares and smouldering touches, and sometimes John lies awake at night only to feel that he is choking on the smoke and his throat and nose and eyes are raw from it and he cannot breathe. Alexander is addictive and intoxicating and dangerous but John craves heat like he craves nothing else. 

He does not say this but it soaks through his words.

”Yes. Yes.”

Yes.

John can feel the numbness receding.

Can feel Alex’s breaths within him like rolls of quaking thunder.

Can feel the hot rain seep into his skin and into his lungs and into his eyes and melt his coldness as though he is the candle wax and Alexander is the burning wick.

Now, he can be so much more.

They can be so much more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sOoOoOo once again, I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading!
> 
> Also,, y’kno,,, go check out my other fic if you have time (wow we sure do love some shameless self-promo over here!!)
> 
> G’night!


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! I’ve been editing this chapter throughout the week and I still don’t like it but oh well!! Hope it’s not terrible!!
> 
> I’ve used some Spanish in this chapter. The only language I’ve been formally taught is Italian (sorta French too but like,,, no. Speak a fair bit tho.) so that’s really the only one I can speak proficiently (lmao and Latin but that doesn’t count!! we love a dead language!!). However, the two languages are p similar & I lowkey have some kinda grasp on Spanish but?? BaSicALLy, if it’s wrong, PLEASE correct me lmao.
> 
> Also, TRIGGER WARNING for a panic attack breakdown thing. Basically a lot of pain. Sorry.

It is April, the city has bloomed into a cool, green, buzzing metropolis and John and Alexander have been dating for three months.

Time passes and they grow with the leaves on the trees and they too become coloured in, patches of crinkled greyscale smoothed over like linen sheets and brightened afresh. They exist in a sort of skewed symbiosis that is all too inebriating and John cannot help but succumb to it, to him, to Alexander.

It is bright and whole and nurturing and what they both need.

They have become something more and they have become complete.

Spring watches them from the crooks of the branches of the trees lining the streets, from the wind-beaten lilacs outside the flower shops, from the eyes of the curious blackbird above; watches them in their fragile dance and envelopes them.

They are whole and they are safe.

—

They continue like this, in their fragile dance, until John finds himself reeled mercilessly out of the flowing water and thrown unceremoniously onto hard Earth. 

Alexander calls him.

This in itself is not cause for concern; they have been together for three months, and in that time they have called each other. Inevitably.

The shock comes when John picks up and hears only staticy, shuddering breaths like harsh waves against rocks and remembers that it has been three months since he last heard Alexander like this and he is scared.

”Alex,” he whispers, his boyfriend’s name spilling over his lips.

”John.” Alex’s voice cracks and shatters on the vowel and as clichéd as it is he sounds _broken_ and that is not a word John ever thought he would associate with Alexander Hamilton. “John, I-“

God. _God_. “Alex-“ suddenly he is speaking and the words are erupting in a rush. “Where are you? Are you safe?”

John has always known about this side of Alex. Has known that anybody who has gone through what he has will have a darkness to them, has seen that darkness pooling in his eyes sometimes when they are together. It has always scared him but before now it was exciting, the prospect of being engulfed by the pools an exhilarating one. Before, John had thought about it as though it were distant and surreal.

Now, it is all too real. 

“I don’t- I-“ Alex stutters over his words and John cannot bear to hear him deprived of what he relies upon most. “I need you.”

Alexander needs him.

Normally, John would feel a swell of pride at that. Alexander Hamilton, famously independent, famously defensive, needs him.

He does not feel pride.

“Where are you?”

”Laf’s,” Alexander gasps out and that same jealously that has plagued John since this all began threatens to rise up until he remembers that today Laf and Alex have a class together, and Laf must have taken Alex to their place when they realised he was like _this_ , and he should be grateful.

”Okay. Okay. I’m coming. I’m coming, Alex. No te preocupes. Estarás bien, te prometo.” The whispers tumble foreign and frantic from his throat before he even realises he has turned to their native language. 

(Sometimes, they speak it conspiratorially and it is something they can share, something to unite them. Sometimes, they can find comfort in the words that taste like home in mouths that have been yellowed and polluted by the city.)

(Right now, when John opens his mouth, he is assaulted by the city smog.)

The lines are blurring between him and Alexander and he is no longer sure who he is comforting.

“Por favor no te preocupes. Te prometo que todo va a estar bien.” The words are pleading, desperate.

John can hear Alexander softly crying on the other end, imagines him curled up with tears trailing down the side of his face and soaking his hair and his clothes and pooling on a cool floor beneath him and feels a distant horror fix its claws upon him, and feels guilty. For what, he isn’t sure. John is terrified and calm simultaneously and he slams the door behind him mindlessly, running towards Laf’s mindlessly, his mind blank and white and undisturbed as a bowl of milk. His heart is pounding in his ears.

He reaches Laf’s door and raps heavily on it. His friend’s face appears and it is grave and heavy with anticipation.

”John,” they begin, as though in this they can soften the blow. “Alexander called you, yes?”

John nods numbly.

”He- he is very upset. I do not know what caused it, but- he is not himself.”

John waits for Laf to continue but they do not, instead pulling the door open to allow John in. John does not see Alex and his heart begins hammering frantically until Laf gestures to the bathroom and John immediately makes for the entrance.

He opens the door and there is Alexander.

He sits hunched against the wall ( _like a wounded animal_ , John’s mind supplies) and even from where he is standing John can see the tremors in his hands and the pallor of his face and the silent movement of his lips, as though he is praying.

Alex doesn’t believe in God. Seeing him now, John understands why.

Alexander looks up and sees him.

“ _John_.”

John is on the ground opposite him and _Christ_ he does not know what this is but it is eating Alexander alive. 

“ _Help me_.”

Oh. _Oh. Alex is-_

_”Please.”_

Alex is in _pain._

Johncan feel tears spilling down his own face. Alexander’s eyes are immense and glassy and distant but _horrified_.

“Okay, Alex. Breathe.” Alexander chokes. “Breathe with me Alex, please.”

”I can’t, I- I _can’t_ ”

”Yes you can. You’re safe. Estás seguro. Ahora estás a salvo.” 

The words are thick on his tongue but they seem to reach Alex who uncurls fractionally, reaching for John who grips his hands tightly and whispers to him.

Alexander is desperate and John sees this in his pleading eyes and hears it in the broken choked whines erupting painfully from his throat and God it hurts him more than _anything_.

The sobs are all consuming and rack Alex’s whole body, his fragile spine straining and curving under the oppressive weight and his head dipping down into his chest. John takes him in him arms and guides him into his lap and holds this unfamiliar, shattered, incomplete figure to him and cries with him.

”Oh _God_ -“

”I know.”

“ _Please_ -“

”You’re okay.”

” _I can’t_ -“

“You can.”

” _This isn’t fair_.”

At that, John breaks too. Because it isn’t. It isn’t fair. It is so cruel and so harsh and so unforgiving that it has broken them.

They stay there until it is dark and the only light in the room is the smoky blue shadow of dusk.

Eventually, when they have cried all they can and they are too tired for words and they have been hung up to dry like colourless, sodden sheets, Lafayette comes into the room and wordlessly helps them home, supporting Alex with one arm and smiling at John with a brightness that on anyone else would look false and forced but on them does not.

They take a taxi back and close their eyes to the overwhelming buzz of the city streets and the too bright lights and the round, blank, moonlit faces.

John does not ask.

—

They are back in their dorm. They are intertwined on John’s bed, facing each other and breathing together and complete and quiet in their reprieve.

John imagines them as a glass mosaic, blue and white and green and orange and red shards brought together and moulded and shaped by flames in a furnace until they emerge as one breathtaking pane. Imagines their colours bleeding together until they are an indistinguishable and opaque black through which no light can pass.

John imagines the mosaic dropping on them, shattering into thousands of tiny fragments. Imagines the fragments being washed away into rivers and imagines them in the eyes and throats of the fish in the water and feels as though he is one of those fish and feels the blood in his lungs and on his face.

He watches Alex in the darkness. There is no blood on his face, no blood in his lungs. He is unscathed in the bare blue light.

John turns away from Alexander’s closed eyes, and sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a mess but yeah? Sorry.
> 
> Also I am,, struggling,,, with chapter four. Do not know what to write. Am waiting to suddenly find inspiration instead of just writing it. Should probably start actually writing it.
> 
> Also yeah, thanks for reading! I hope you continue to enjoy this or whatever, feel free to comment (I love y’all lmao) and have a good day!!!


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